Forever and Alwaves, a homestuck fanfic

Feferi was this wonderful bundle of compassion, fearlessness, excitement and optimism, all mixed up into a cloud of hair and the slightest bit too much flesh for her bone structure, which made her all the more beautiful.

Massive sadstuck under the read more

Eridan isn't sure how she's his best friend, but he loves her for it more than he could ever put into words.

They met when they were four, he was standing in the book corner wailing furiously at his mother leaving, and she threw a book at him. He was so surprised by it that he completely quieted, starting at this little girl in a flowing pink dress and long braided hair who dared to assault him with a chewed copy of Thomas The Tank Engine.
She came over to him to retrieve the book, and he pushed her over. She landed on her behind with a small thud, and instead of bursting into tears like he'd expected her to, she smiled up at him and grabbed his hand, and pulling with all her might, tore him down to the floor as well.
They looked at each other, his wet blue eyes meeting her brown ones, and
instantly he knew she would be in his life for as long as he could keep her.
"What's your name? I'm Feferi" She demanded, sitting next to him in the brightly coloured corner.
Feferi. The name fitted her like a glove. "E-Eridan."
She laughed, "Eridan? That's such a stupid name!"
The shame was crushing, and he'd left a large bruise on her shin for that one, and she'd pulled out strands of his hair.
She was so confident, he could barely stand it. He was terrified of the world, horrified even. She wasn't scared of anything, not a single thing.
She'd squash spiders, climb to the highest rung of the climbing frame, and stand up to people even years older then them.
Once, he saw a girl with a shock of black hair and spidery limbs, two years older than them at least, push her over in the playground.
Feferi smiled up at her, then opened her mouth, and screamed to the extent of her lungs until a teacher angrily grabbed the older girl by the hand with a quick, "Vriska!" and dragged her across the playground.
He flushed her fish down the toilet; she threw his toys out the window.
She couldn't even read or write her name, he could do all his letters and count to thirty. His mother had made sure of that.
Feferi just made up stories with the little bears they used to try to teach her to count.
She was far more interested in playtime and making friends than learning anything.
"What's that say, Eridan?"
"That's your name, stupid, what are you doing?"
"Drawing fishies, stupid."
It worked perfectly, and they were happy.

At twelve, his mother tried to put him in a different high school, and he'd refused to eat until she changed her mind. He hated the idea of being separate from his best friend, his Feferi.
She was always his in his mind, and always would be.
"I knew it! I knew it! I just knew it!"
She yelled when he found out, "It's just perfect! I knew it! We'll be together forever"
He held her and spun her round and told her; "Forever and ever, Fef."
High school brought out everything good in her, and left him awkward and lonely.
She climbed higher and higher on the social ladder, and he couldn't seem to make friends.
"Just loosen up Eridan!"
She told him as she gained more friends, went to more parties and had boyfriends. She had less and less of him, a horrible less.
She wasn't there and it hurt.
For the first time in eight years, there was no Feferi.
Only Eridan, he wasn't sure if he could deal with this.
He wasn't whole without her.

By 14, he liked his older peers better; 16 year old Vriska, with carefully curled black hair and painted blue lips and Gamzee, who always smelt just a little too much like smoke and something Eridan wasn't sure of, 17 year old Equius, who looked as through he'd spent his life working out and a 12 year old girl called Nepeta who wore cat ears constantly and just as constantly had a rolled up cigarette between her lips.
Feferi still stayed, constant and affectionate. She'd turn up every lunch break, her
small crowd following her, and offer him somewhere to go with them.
He'd glance at the people around him, then at the people around her.
He shook his head, turned her away from him, just as she had turned away from him.
She left him alone again, without her.
Vriska propped herself up next to him one day, pulling a cigarette from a pack nestled in her cleavage and tucked it into his mouth, holding a lighter to it.
"You look a little down."
She laughed as if there was a joke to it, "Life's gonna get you down."
Eridan nodded and breathed it in, coughing a little at the sudden choking sensation.
"I miss her."
He blurted out, regretting it instantly.
"We all miss someone, fuckface."
He raised an eyebrow, "Who do you miss?"
She looked thoughtful, and he knew she was thinking how much to tell him, how much she could bare to let out, carefully dragging in and puffing out smoke.
"This girl I knew. My best friend, I guess."
He nodded in what he hoped was an understanding way as she inhaled.
"We knew each other since we were kids. We didn't get along that well, I guess. And one time we were playing together by this mine shaft, daring each other and that stuff."
She coughed hard, but Eridan thought it was more to give her a reason to have tears in her eyes than because she was choking.
"And I dared her to climb up on these railings, and they broke."
A single tear slips out, and she quickly wipes it away.
"She lost her eyesight and she never spoke to me again. She killed herself last year."
"Oh."
He has nothing to say.
He can't find words.
He just slips her hand into his and they smoke together until the bell rings.

At sixteen, he watches Feferi from her kitchen table as she scoops up a budgie in a tea-towel from its cage, watching it peck at her through the cloth furiously. She picks up a needle-less syringe off the table next to him, already supplied with antibiotics and fruit juice, and deposits the liquid into its beak before it can even try to escape.
After she puts it back into the cage, he watches her bend slightly over the kitchen sink in her panties and half-see-through shirt, and it almost hurts how casual she is with him.
His head hurts as she puts her skirt on, and then changes it to trousers, and then shorts, asking his opinion on each one.
All he wants to say is, 'you're beautiful Feferi, you've always been beautiful to me.'
But he smiled, nodded and bantered with her.
"You may as well wear a traffic light with the colours on that, Fef."
She throws the skirt at him, and he wishes he didn't breathe in her scent on it.
The smell of her perfume is overwhelming to him. She's too much to have so close.
She smiled and laughed, and he dug his nails into his palm, and tries desperately to ignore the fact that he is desperately, wonderfully and hopelessly in love with his best friend.
She's everything he could possible ever want.
The doorbell rings sharply and pulls his mind away from her. "Eridan, we'll be late!"
She drags him to the door, her arm slipped around his and it burns with how much he loves her touch these days.
The only thing that could make this worse is the boy on the doorstep and the way Feferi throws her arms around him and he smiles and she smiles and it's all so perfectly horrible that Eridan can barely stop himself pummelling this detestable creature into the nearest wall.
Of course, he's not alone. He's with Feferi's friends.
A willowy girl in the year above them with hair almost as long as Feferi's; Aradia, he thinks. A short girl with bright green lips and spiked hair with vampires on her school bag and pins in her jacket, he knows her as Vriska's ex-girlfriend Kanaya. A blonde girl with eyes darker than Eridan thought was possible and her arm around Kanaya's waist he believes is called Daisy or Blossom, or some sort of flowery name.
The last of her usual group is missing, but that isn't surprising.
Feferi's closest friend; aside from him, he tells himself, a pretty, petite and tanned girl doesn't walk to school, she seems to be absent a lot anyway.
He really doesn't care.
Eridan just wishes that boy would leave, the only reason he's around is for Feferi.
His Feferi.
His Feferi being flirted and courted with by this pale and ugly undeserving creature.
He walks close by her, ignoring everyone else, gritting his teeth hatefully as she giggles and flutters her eyes, and not at him either.
He tries to find her at lunch break, and finds her pressed against a wall by Sollux, their lips pressed together and his hands tangled into her hair, he exactly where Eridan has dreamed of being so many times.
Sollux sees him and gives him a grin that just begs Eridan to hurt him.
He leaves before she sees him; he doesn't want to upset her.
Unlike her scum boyfriend, he isn't the type to stoop that low.
Instead, he finds Vriska, now his confidante and vent for frustration.
She's with her boyfriend; a dorky and weak-looking boy who he recognises as the prankster of their year. They're just a strange pair that he'd never believe it if anyone else told him.
But Vriska is nothing if not loyal at times, and this is one of those times.
She follows him to their private place, and he yells and screams and ends up crying into her chest.
Vriska doesn't know what to do with him, but they end up somehow kissing and neither of them are the type to deny the challenge.
She's his first kiss, and as the lunch bell goes off and they ignore it, she becomes his first for so much more.
"Don't tell anyone."
She hisses as her sharp teeth graze his neck and his hands tighten around her waist.
"I w-won't tell anyone."
He hates that his voice fails him, but the heat radiating off her is irresistible.
She pushes her shirt up and he explores her breasts eagerly. There isn't much to her, but he doesn't care.
Vriska is nothing like Feferi, there's no softness to her and no innocence. She grunts and bites his flesh and shoves his hand into her pants, he has no idea what to do so he lets her guide him.
She laughs at him and asks if he's done this before, and he shakes his head and she laughs again.
He almost pushes her away and leaves, but the moment her hand touches him his knees buckle.
It's all too soon that he's inside her and she's moaning as her hand rubs against herself between them and it feels all too good to be true and perfectly horrible at the same time.
When he gets home, Feferi is waiting on his doorstep, tears in her eyes, and she tells him the bird died shortly after she returned home that day.
Vriska leaves school that year, but they stay close as he and Feferi drift apart.

Feferi comes to him shortly after her 18th, they haven't even seen each other in half a year, but he feels gloriously triumphant at being the person she comes to. He can smell her perfume over the heavy aura of alcohol and breaths it in as she embraces him for the first time in almost a year.
"He's sleeping with her."
He doesn't ask, because he knows.
That disgusting boy shattered Feferi for what she thought was her friend; he's heard these stories before.
She's crying, and all he wants to do is put her back together- Except somehow, he doesn't.
He doesn't clean her tears and shush her, then put her in their spare room and leave her there until morning.
He doesn't do what a best friend should, even an ex-best friend.
Instead, he meets her lips half way when she kisses him, ignoring the taste of alcohol and pretending this is all for him, pretending she wants him.
He knows he's the last person she wants right now in this way, but he lets himself be taken in by her soft warmth and the taste of her lips.
Feferi shivers; whispering a name which he pretends is his.
He leaves kisses and bites down her neck, staining her with his affection, his need for her.
She moans and runs her fingers through his hair, and its so bitter sweet that he could almost feel an arrow through his heart.
He's decadent with her breasts, making her cry out and grasp at him as he acts out the desires he's had for so long.
She's nearly thrown onto his bed, stumbling back with bleary eyes and matted hair, and he almost feels bad for what he's about to do to her, but he has already decided that if he's going this far, how could it hurt more?
Her bohemian skirt is bundled up around her hips as he removes her underwear and presses his palm to the heat radiating off her.
He indulges himself, dipping his fingers into her and she arches up so perfectly.
The most intense moment of the experience is when his name, really his, drips off her lips as she rolls her hips against his fingers and cries out.
"I'm here, Fef. I've always been here."
Her arms go around his neck, and he kisses her again.
He starts to believe she really wants him, just him.
Her nails rake his back as he enters her in one swift movement.
It's neither of their first times, but for him it may as well be with how beautiful the moment feels.
Feferi is crying out under him as he rocks into her over and over, it feels like it lasts forever and only a moment at the same time.
He thrusts against her and she shakes in his arms, and it's so overwhelming, so perfect, there's no other word for it.
He's fucking her and she's crying his name and he can feel her against him like he never has before.
"You're beautiful, Fef, you're so beautiful."
He's almost sobbing, he knows this is the only time he'll ever have her.
The only thing that keeps him from almost immediately sating himself inside her is the desperate need to get her to completion.
It's almost magical when she does, stuttering his name and rutting her hips against his, and he releases all the pressure and all the pain he's kept into her.
He bites her shoulder, bruising instantly, and now he is sobbing into her curtains of hair, feeling his heart break and she didn't even have to do anything.
She shushes him, telling him its okay, telling him everything will be alright.
She doesn't reply when he says he loves her, but next time he looks at her, she's asleep.
He does too, eventually, holding onto her as if his life depended on her.
She's gone too soon in the morning, and she doesn't come back.

At approximately 18 and a half, school is over and he has no reason to see her.
He can't see her in the hallways, can't watch her while he pretends to be paying attention in lessons.
He can't stand near her and pretend he's interested in his friends' prattling.
Instead, they go to the same parties.
He isn't invited, but Equius is muscle enough to assure no one complains and Vriska has an in already with her normal-esque but not particularly popular boyfriend.
They're celebrating Nepeta's 16th at the current one they're attending uninvited, at Kanaya's parents' house.
It's the middle of summer and heat is pounding down on the concrete.
Vriska is dressed to kill, and probably ready for it too, a tight blue satin number clinging onto her.
Her boyfriend is dressed down to the hilt and it suits them perfectly, he's as jealous as he can even be and Vriska notices. She digs her nails into him when she puts her arm around his neck and says, "Tell anyone and you'll be dead by morning."
He knows.
Eridan drinks with Equius, Nepeta and the girl that Sollux chose over Feferi, or at least with Nepeta. Neither of the former drink and Nepeta gets very silly very quickly.
Equius pretends to control her but there's no real way he can prevent her from hanging off the arm of a short boy who looks angry at everything, especially the way she's trying to kiss him.
He doesn't see them again after he leaves the makeshift bar and he doesn't really want to.
Eridan finds Feferi with him.
After being a perfect friend for so long he doesn't even get more than one drunken chance and Sollux can do whatever he wants and still end up with her.
She doesn't see him; neither of them do this time.
He watches her play with her hair, wiggle down her top and flip her skirt.
He watches him touch her hair and brush it out her face and down her body.
It's enough to draw his hands into fists and hate him, hate her, hate himself.
He's just drunk enough that he doesn't care what happens.
Eridan has his hands around her lover's throat before anyone knows what's happening, least of all Eridan himself.
He's surprised that the other male has any strength in him, least of all enough to push Eridan off him.
Feferi shouts, but neither care now, hissing and spitting insults like angry cats.
Kanaya gets in the way of their argument; Eridan is pulled away between her and Vriska and it's over all too soon, the only consolation is the blood on his fists.
Feferi looks at him, her eyes are full of disappointment which cuts through any remaining pride he might have for himself.

At 19, he watches her as she leaves for work. She's 20 minutes late leaving the preschool, with her hair matted into curls, a heavy-looking bag on one arm and paint smudged on her upper lip.
She smiles, waves and runs towards a skinny, lanky man that he would recognise anywhere after any number of years.
They embrace, his fingers in her hair, sliding down to grasp her ass, and Eridan aches with how badly he wants to be right there.
They get in the car after a few moments of passionate kissing,
Eridan follows them in his own car and he quickly realises they aren't going to Feferi's house; the part of down they head to is darker, dingy and not at all suited to Feferi at all, he decides.
They park outside a run-down block of flats and, after sitting in the car for a few minutes conversing, she gets out first, flicking hair behind her shoulder and running to the door of flats. Sollux chases her after barely a second of waiting, and they run through the door, and he imagines up the stairs.
He sits and waits, knowing he shouldn't have even watches this so far, let alone continuing to watch them.
A light goes on, and he's sure it must be theirs. He's even more sure when he sees a silhouette that can only be Feferi's, Sollux pulling her shirt off, forgetting to close the shades.
He watches them kiss, embrace and then Sollux ducks lower and he can imagine the keening noise that Feferi made when he attended to the gentle peaks of her breasts almost a year ago.
Her head is tipped back, hair cascading down in glorious waves, as her hands trek lower down his back, and he wonders if she's making the same noises.
He wonders if Sollux knows that Feferi was, is, his. That she should have always been his.
He should be touching her and kissing her and making her make those noises.
She should be his right now.
He watches them she's defiled by Sollux against the wall of their awful apartment, aroused and disgusted by the image at the same time, heat burns between his legs and he tries his best to pretend otherwise.
In the end, he doesn't succeed in ignoring it.

At 20, he isn't sure what he should be doing with his life without her. He works 40 hours a week and sleeps the rest of the time. She isn't there.
That's the most burning and prevalent though.
He stares up his ceiling and wonders what she-what they are doing.
She must be finished working, she must be at home, she must be with Sollux.
There's nowhere else she would be right now, though, she should be with him.
All the times he put up with her stupid mistakes, all the times he consoled her after them, all the times he made them right; gone, all for nothing.
He can imagine her taunting him, "Eridan, how could you ever think I loved you? You were just someone to use, what did you think, I cared about you?"
He doesn't care how unlike her it sounds, it makes him feel bitter and wretched and hateful.
He hates her, he hates her, he hates her.
It's not true though, it could never be true.
He could never hate his Feferi, because she is his and he loves her.
He's always loved her.
He bought weights recently, to distract himself.
Sleepless hours end up being diminished working out, leaving him exhausted and sated.
The next day, Vriska tuts at him when she sees him worn and nearly destroyed through his efforts;
She ends up feeding him out of her own pocket half the time and he both hates and adores her for it.
Can she see he's trying to waste away?
"Eridan, you have to actually eat if you're going to exercise so much."
She's taken to being his word of reason, strangely.
"What do you know, Vriska? The only way less people could like you is if you stopped giving it all away free."
He doesn't care how petty he sounds, especially to the last person that seems to care.
"Nepeta is worried about you,"
She comments as she takes food out of the microwave and sets it in front of him. She brought it over; he's not even sure what it is, something with chicken, from the looks of it.
He eats it despite that it tastes like rubber and has the consistency of it too.
"She doesn't need to worry, I'm doing just fine."
She raises an eyebrow and pokes at her own rubber-chicken-meal.
"You look like you've lost most of twenty pounds."
"So?"
He knows she hates being here, she hates playing mother to him and fixing his problems.
Feferi would know how to do it, he thinks bitterly, Feferi would make everything better, if only Sollux wasn't keeping her.
She would love him and care for him and make everything better.
His glass hits the wall shortly after he throws it, shattering and shocking Vriska. "She isn't here."
He says out-loud, hardly even meaning for it to be said.
She ignores him and chews on another lump of poultry.
"John is starting to get a little fed up with how much I come here."
Eridan doesn't care. He hopes John gets so fed up that he leaves and Vriska only has him.
Maybe that would teach her what he feels.
But instead, he tells her, "You don't have to keep coming, I'll look after myself." She looks grateful but cynical.

At almost 21, he has put on a decent amount of muscle.
He hopes Feferi would be impressed, and on a whim he decides to visit her apartment.
He's almost hopeful as he drives there.
Sollux opens the door, immediately frowning darkly when he sees Eridan.
Eridan returns his glare, "Where's Fef?"
She should be home by now, he checked.
"She's out."
The lisp makes him grit his teeth in annoyance.
"Where is she?"
The man in the doorway crosses his arms, unthreatened Eridan's taller, muscular figure.
"Already said, she's out."
What has he done to her? Why isn't she here? Where is she?
He thinks the worst, hating Sollux more than he already thought possible.
"Son of a bitch, what have you done with her?"
Sollux looks mirthful at the angry terror shaking his bones, "I think you know what I have done with her, but right now, she's out. I don't know where exactly and I wouldn't tell you anyway."
He tried to shut the door, but Eridan won't let him.
"What's your problem?"
The sentence is simple but enough to push him over the edge.
He isn't the one with the problem, Feferi is the problem, he's always been the solution.
He grabs Sollux's shirt and pulls him out the door on staggering feet.
He doesn't count the punches he throws or hear the choking noise Sollux starts to make.
If he was a decent person, he's stop when his rival fell to the floor, but he doesn't. He kicks and stamps and takes out all the anger he's held for so many years.
The only thing that stops him is when he hears a clutter of sounds and looks up to see Feferi surrounded by fallen bags of groceries.
"Sollux!"
She doesn't care about him, she runs past him, unafraid, clasping the man he's just saved her from to her chest.
Doesn't he knows he's just saved her? She can leave now.
"Fef, I-"
The glare she gives him could have killed him. He's never seen her so angry and upset.
He backs away from her, to the safety of his car. He hears her shrieking after him, "How could you do this to me?"
Why is she being so selfish? He saved her and she hates him for it.
He doesn't notice the blood covering him until he gets home.
It doesn't bother him.

The next day is surprising.
He showers and dresses for work, but as he's about to leave, a car pulls up.
A tired, angry and beautiful Feferi steps out.
He hovers in the doorway, unsure of what to do.
She must have come to her senses, she must have realised he loves her, she must have realised she belongs to him.
Instead, she screams at him, right there in his front yard.
"How could you do that to me? I haven't even talked to you in three years, why would you do that?!"
She marches towards him, as fearless as he remembers, "Fef, I- I didn't think-"
She's in his face and he backs into the house, trying to escape her despaired screaming, "You didn't think? He's in hospital, he could die!"
Tears are pouring down both of their cheeks; her in compassion and anger, his in hopelessness and desperation.
She's in his house and so close to him, all he ever wanted, and she's so angry at him.
"Fef, I saved you, you'll be safe."
She looks at him in disbelief, "Saved me? From what, being happy?"
This isn't supposed to happen, this isn't supposed to happy, oh god this isn't supposed to happen.
"From hi-"
She doesn't even let him finish, "I don't need saving! I'm not a damned princess! I love him!"
No, no, this isn't right.
"No, Fef,"
His cheek stings red hot when she slaps him, hard.
"Yes! Eridan, I was happy, everything was perfect! Then you did what you always do and had to throw yourself a pity party and destroy everything!"
He feels like a child, stupid and insignificant, "We were supposed to be together, Fef. Always you and me, remember? It's perfect, remember?"
Feferi stairs at him like he's crazy, but she's the crazy one. She promised him, she promised.
"We aren't meant to be anything any more, we can't even be friends anymore."
They haven't been friends for a long time but it crushes him anyway.
He pushes her, and she stumbles, hitting back against a wall. "I tried to save you, I tried to help you and you don't even care!"
He's pushing her against the wall, and she's screaming almost incoherently, "Stop! Eridan, stop it!"
She won't stop ordering him about, he hates it as much as he loves her.
"Stop! Please!"
He feels the soft flesh of her neck under his fingers and he pulls her back and forth, ignoring the sickening sound of her head against the wall on every collision.
"Why don't you love me? I wanted to save you, I did everything for you!"
She's becoming limper; she must be giving into him. He doesn't stop.
"I love you, Fef. I always loved you but you were too much of a selfish bitch to care."
She's spasms suddenly when he slams her harder into the wall, he needs desperately to persuade her to love him; he can't let her leave.
"I love you, Fef. I love you so much."
She's finally silent and limp in his arms.
He doesn't realise anything is wrong until she doesn't respond when he presses his lips to hers.
She doesn't even flinch away like he almost expected.
He lays her down deciding he must have been too hard on her.
He'll apologize when she wakes up.
He touches her mane of hair, running his fingers through it, closer and closer to her.
It's a shock when his fingers come back sticky and coated red, but everything is far too raw and numb for him to care.
He'll have to bandage that up when she wakes up.
His Feferi is finally all his.
Eridan picks her up, carries her to his bed and lays her down.
He covers her and positions her on her back comfortably.
She looks so beautiful; he almost ignores the terror and pain on her face and the slowly staining red on his pillow.

He spends the next two hours cleaning for her. His house is perfect by the time he's finished. All except her blood on the wall, he feels she should clean that.
Next, he cleans her, gently brushing her ashen face and neck with cloths, mopping her blood tears away.
He does it so carefully it takes almost another hour.

The next is taken up with her hair, ever so carefully detangling the thick mass.
Its lunch time by the time he's finished.
He decides today he should eat and he makes enough for them both, gathering as much food as he has in the house, which is very little at that, to make something half decent,
He tries to wake her, but she's still resting, so he eats alone and covers hers for when she's ready.
Time seems slower with her there.
It would be nice if she was awake to realize all the love and care he's put into her, but he'll wait.

Eridan Ampora is nothing if not patient, he tells himself.

By 4, he's run out of things to do.
She's started feeling stiff and cold.
He pulls more blankets around her. It won't do for her to be cold.
His Feferi should be treated like a princess, she should never need anything.
He holds her from outside the blanket.
By 5, he's asleep, clinging to her chilled body.
There's nothing he can do.

He wakes up in a fit of tears and clutches her. She's stiff and immovable, but she's here.
Her flushed skin is now pallid and waxy.
He knows what he's done, even if he won't admit it.
There's no way about it, he can't live without her.
She's been his life for 17 years, since she was a chubby little girl with pigtailed hair and dresses that were always a little too long and since he was a wailing pale boy with hair that stuck up at every angle and clothes too prim and proper to play in.
He holds her and he thinks.
He thinks until the clock alarm blares, and he half expects her to wake up to it.
When she doesn't, he turns it off.
He'd decided already, but he didn't know how until the alarm.
The sound of it reminded him of the alarm on his stove and he wonders why he hadn't thought of it before.
He will just fall asleep with her and it will all be perfect and over.
He hates to leave her, but has to, flicking all the gas switches on the stove to full, and as he inhales the smell he smiles.
He can fall asleep with her in his arms, and she will be his forever.
With his arms around her and his face nestled into her neck, the smell of her blood overwhelming him, he just prays for an end.

Half an hour later, he's still here, light-headed and half-asleep, but here.
This isn't working; he should be asleep by now, fully.
He should be with her, far from here.
He makes another decision and unsteadily rummages through his bedside draw until he finds a cylindrical cigarette lighter.
One of Vriska's long-lost items from her many evenings at his house, persuading him to eat, bathe or sleep.
Now she won't have to worry about him.
He looks down at Feferi, combs his free hand through her hair and presses a kiss to her still lips.
He can almost imagine her returning the gesture as he flicks the flame into life.
Loving him the way he has always loved her, together, the way he knew they always had to be.